The Lady of Dark Lake

by Raven Snow

  “Then why haven’t I heard about this place before? Why aren’t there scientists crawling all over? Is this a government cover-up or something?” More likely, Lady decided, she was going insane.

  “Not everyone sees the things you and I see.”

  “So, not everyone can see the monsters?” Yep, Lady was definitely going insane. “Why can I see them?”

  Ms. Poole spread her hands in an ambiguous gesture. “It’s just how it is, how it’s always been. People with the knack for seeing these creatures find themselves drawn here.”

  “I wasn’t drawn here! I meant to pass right on through here. I’ve been planning to leave this whole time!”

  “And yet here you are.” Ms. Poole looked down at Lion. He was sitting in the grass, keeping his distance from the water’s edge. “Outside forces worked to get you here.”

  “Okay.” Lady held up her hands, like she had to physically block anything else ludicrous from reaching her ears. She needed time to process what she was being told. “So, what you’re saying is that a monster killed Riley.” The sheer idea forced a laugh from her even though it wasn’t funny in the least. “And how am I supposed to take that to the cops, huh? Does this happen often? Monsters killing people left and right? Should I call down now, tell them to get a sketch artist ready?”

  Ms. Poole took a deep breath, like it was taking a concentrated effort on her part not to lose her patience with Lady. “It’s not that the creatures kill people themselves. Occasionally they might. Someone like you who is sensitive to their presence but also mentally weak—”

  “Hey!”

  “Someone like you is open to possession or an attack. Those who can’t see the things we can are still influenced by them in subtle ways. It’s not possession so much as it is a gentle nudge toward one’s darker impulses.”

  “Hang on.” Lady still had her hand raised. She stared at the lake as she thought. Rational thinking kept gumming up the clockwork in her brain, but she powered through it. “You’re telling me that someone murdered that Riley guy because a kelpie told them to?”

  “You think the boy they found here was murdered?” Ms. Poole sounded genuinely curious.

  Lady considered the question. “Yeah… Yeah, I guess I kind of do.”

  “Then, yes, it’s entirely possible that a kelpie was summoned by someone’s thoughts and then helped to put those thoughts to action.”

  “But that would mean, like, they aren’t really responsible for murder.” Lady brushed some of the grit from her scraped knees and stood. “Right?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far.” Ms. Poole offered Lady her hand, helping her get off the algae-slick rocks and onto ground with more traction. “Could you talk yourself into drowning someone? Could someone else talk you into drowning someone?”

  “It would depend on who it was and what the circumstances were. I mean—” Lady sighed. She was making excuses. “When it comes down to it, whatever I do is my decision. Oh! Unless they’re literally holding a gun to my head!”

  “They wouldn’t be able to see the gun, literal or figurative.”

  “Yeah, fine. Whatever. Towel in your car, right?”

  “In the trunk.”

  Lady trudged away from the lake and back toward the car. She had left her phone on the passenger seat. The next course of action was to call Andrea. That was assuming that she could actually get her on the phone. On a day like today, there was no telling how she was feeling or where she was precisely.

  The sound of a door opening caught Lady’s attention. She snapped her head in the direction of the cabin, the one marked as closed. It was Dom who stepped outside. He was recognizable instantly by that jumble of hair and considerable size. There was a book bag slung over his shoulder. It looked preposterous there, pink and silver and much too small. That was the first thing Lady noticed. The second was that he was looking straight at her… and she was only wearing underwear.

  Lady swore and dropped her clothes. She fumbled with them on the ground, trying to hastily wiggle back into her pants and shirt. So much for drying off before she got dressed.

  Dom cleared his throat and turned around. There were a pair of keys in his hand and he busied himself with locking the door very slowly. “If it makes you feel any better, I saw you in your underwear the first time I pulled you out of the lake.”

  “That doesn’t make me feel better, thanks. What are you doing here anyway?”

  “What are you doing here?” Dom turned and closed some of the distance between them while Lady laced her shoes up.

  “I asked first.”

  “Fine.” Dom hefted the bag on his shoulder and motioned to it. “I was picking this up for Destiny. Understandably, she didn’t much feel like coming to get it herself.” He nodded at Ms. Poole. “Hi, ma’am.”

  “Hello, dear,” said Ms. Poole, returning the nod with a smile.

  Lady didn’t like that they were familiar with one another. She didn’t trust Dom. She didn’t trust Ms. Poole either, but she wanted to. “What’s in the bag?”

  Dom turned back to Lady, looking down on her in every sense of the word. “That’s really none of your business. Now, are you going to tell me what you’re doing here?”

  “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

  “Whatever.” Dom turned and began to walk away. It was Ms. Poole who called after him.

  “She thinks someone murdered that Riley fellow. She saw the kelpie in the lake.”

  Dom stopped walking. He stood very still for several seconds then turned, slowly. His gaze was on Lady, looking her up and down like he was considering her carefully. “So, you can see them, huh?”

  “I don’t know what I saw.” Lady didn’t miss the annoyed look that flickered over Dom’s sharp features. She sighed. “But, yeah. I saw something, I guess.”

  Dom nodded like that made perfect sense. “After what happened when you nearly drowned, I figured you might have” He brought up a hand and scratched at his beard. It felt like ages before he spoke again. “Fine. You can come with me.”

  “Excuse me?” Lady directed the question at Dom’s back. He was already walking away like he expected her to follow. “What makes you so sure I want to follow you… wherever it is you’re going?”

  “I’m going to see Destiny.”

  Well… Lady did sort of want to talk to her. “Let me grab my bag first.” She looked to Ms. Poole. “If I go missing after this, you know who killed me.”

  ***

  As it turned out, Destiny didn’t live far from the marina. Lady didn’t have to get in a car with Dom. All she had to do was walk with him through the woods.

  That in and of itself had been a little scary. Lady followed at a distance, Lion on her heels. She had an old towel around her shoulders and her cell phone in her hand.

  Hey. How are you doing? Call me if you need to. Those were the words she had texted Andrea. Not that she had gotten a response. Lady didn’t really expect one. She wasn’t sure what to expect.

  Destiny’s home certainly wasn’t what she was expecting. It was smack dab in the middle of a clearing, two stories tall but not very wide. There were solar panels on the roof. Destiny herself was laid out on the grass lawn. She was wearing the bikini Lady had seen her in that first time. It seemed like a weird time to be sunbathing, but Lady made no mention of that.

  “I’m back,” Dom announced, holding the book bag aloft.

  Destiny sat up and looked in their direction. She pushed a pair of dark sunglasses down her nose and stared without saying anything for a few seconds. “What’s she doing here?” Her voice was cold. There was an angry edge to it that raised Lady’s hackles. She wanted to tell her off, tell her she had been invited, that she didn’t know what Destiny’s problem with her was. She kept that all to herself. Yelling wouldn’t solve anything.

  “I found her down at the marina with Ms. Poole.” Dom kept walking. He stopped next to Destiny and dropped the bag where she sat.

  “Ms. Po
ole?” Destiny looked past Lady then, like someone else might appear from the woods. “Did she come with you?”

  Dom shook his head. “This is our mess. I doubt she wants to get involved.”

  “Right. Of course.” Destiny sighed and stood. She nodded to Lady. “That still doesn’t explain why she’s here.”

  “You know, you don’t have to talk like I’m not around. I can hear you.”

  “Fine. Why are you here? I thought you were leaving town.”

  “I might have.” Lady forgot her fear, that instinct that was telling her to keep a healthy distance between herself and Dom. “I was thinking about it, but then someone punched me out cold and, by the time I woke up, the police wanted me to go to the station and… yeah. That’s pretty much the gist of it. I’m not supposed to leave town yet, and I have you to thank for it.”

  The anger in Destiny’s features slowly drained from her. Her glare dropped to the ground. “I guess it is my fault, huh?” She shook her head. “Stupid.” That last part seemed to be directed at herself, which struck Lady as odd. She didn’t strike her as the sort of person to blame herself for things.

  “You know what she saw when she nearly drowned?” Dom inclined his head in Lady’s direction. “She saw it again a little while ago.”

  “You went back in the water?” Destiny raised an eyebrow, her gaze on Lady again. Now that she was hearing it out loud, it sounded stupid. She shrugged and Destiny laughed. “You’ve got a pair on you, don’t you? Come on.” She snatched up her bag as well as the towel she had been stretched out on. “Let’s go inside.”

  Lady followed Destiny and Dom into the house. Lion followed her, staying close so as not to be left behind. “He’s mine,” Lady explained when he got an odd look from Destiny.

  “And he just follows you around like a dog? That’s cool.”

  The inside of Destiny’s home was cramped but cozy. Large windows allowed the sunlight to stream in. There was a hammock in one corner and book-laden shelves in another. At the center of the room was a circle of beanbag chairs around a coffee table.

  “Let me see that.” Destiny put her bag down on the coffee table and went to Lady. She took her chin in her hand. “Geez, I really got you good, didn’t I?” She clicked her tongue against her teeth. “I’m sorry about that. I wasn’t aiming for you.”

  Lady wasn’t used to this side of Destiny. She had been prepared for more of the anger and aggressiveness from before. The side she was seeing of her now was disarming. “You were aiming for Andrea. That’s not a whole lot better.”

  Destiny released Lady’s chin, rolling her eyes as she did so. “She deserved it.”

  “And why did she deserve it?”

  “It’s complicated.” Destiny walked to the left of the hammock. It appeared there was a small kitchenette in the corner beside it.

  “I’ve been hearing that a lot lately.” Lady watched as Destiny filled a kettle and put it on to boil. “I didn’t mean to get involved but I already am, and I know things are going to stay complicated until someone tells me what’s going on.”

  “You wouldn’t believe us if we did,” said Destiny.

  “I saw a sea monster today, why don’t you try me?”

  A chuckle came from Dom. Lady hadn’t seen him smile yet. He had a good smile. It reached those gray eyes of his, lit them up. “She has a point, you know. If she doesn’t believe you, she doesn’t believe you. Give the girl a chance.”

  “Yeah, give me a chance.”

  Destiny took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “Fine. I mean, we’re about to talk about it and you’re already here anyway. I invited her in, didn’t I?”

  Lady’s phone made a sound. She pulled it out of her tote bag and checked the screen. It was just a spam e-mail. She dropped it back into her bag.

  “You expecting a call?” asked Dom.

  “I texted Andrea.”

  That got Destiny’s attention. “And?” she prompted.

  “And I haven’t heard back from her. Have you guys heard anything?” Lady saw Dom shake his head. She looked to Destiny. “I realize it’s not really my business but… Did you really sleep with her boyfriend?”

  Destiny turned her back to them, focusing on the kettle like it needed her full attention. “Kind of.”

  “Kind of? How do you kind of sleep with someone? Weren’t the two of you friends? It kind of seemed like you used to be friends or, I dunno, amicable coworkers at least.”

  “Dom, why don’t you get started?” Destiny ignored Lady’s question. Her shoulders had gone tense.

  “Sure.” Dom sat himself down on one of the beanbags. He looked silly down there with his knees tucked in and his back hunched so as to be more level with the coffee table. He opened the book bag and began removing its contents.

  Lady flopped down onto the beanbag chair across from Dom. Candles, incense, a knife with a sun carved into the wooden hilt were all removed from the bag. “Don’t tell me you guys do the whole witch thing too.”

  “We do.” Destiny was facing Lady again, her arms crossed over her chest. “We do that whole witch thing.”

  “Okay, okay, that’s cool.” Lady had told them to ‘try her.’ It was stupid of her to start vocally doubting them already. “So, what’s all this stuff?”

  “Tools.” Dom passed the candles to Lady. “Grab something to sit those on.”

  “Tools for what?”

  “It’s easier to just show you.”

  “Why were your tools at the marina?” This question Lady directed at Destiny. “Why not keep your tools at home?” She spotted some empty candle holders on one of the bookshelves and went to gather them up.

  “I wanted them at the scene of the crime just in case. I wanted them to soak up the energy there.”

  “Crime.” Lady latched onto that word. “So, you think there was a crime. You don’t think Riley’s death was an accident.”

  “I-” Destiny began, but she didn’t finish that thought.

  “What do you think?” Dom asked Lady once she was sitting back down across from him.

  “Me? I don’t know. Like you guys keep reminding me, I’m really out of my depth here.” Lady jammed one of the votive candles down onto a metal holder. “And I do like Andrea. She was nice to me, but…”

  “But?”

  “But there’s something she said that I can’t stop thinking about.”

  “What’s that?” Dom had flipped on a lighter he’d taken from his pocket. He lit the candles as Lady passed them to him.

  “Back at the bar, when she was out in the parking lot, she said that Riley loved her. Almost those words exactly. She said it in past tense.” Lady passed the last candle over. “It probably isn’t anything. I’m probably making something out of nothing.”

  “She did say that didn’t she?” Dom bobbed his head in Lady’s direction like what she had just said was commendable. “Nice observation.” He raised a hand and snapped his fingers. “Hey, Destiny, you got any paper I can use?”

  “Don’t snap at me.” All the same, Destiny opened a drawer to her right and pulled out a tan cylinder. She tossed it in Dom’s direction.

  “Thanks.” Dom caught the scroll. It was a wonder it didn’t hit the candles and catch on fire. He spread it out, placing candle holders on each corner to keep it from curling back in on itself.

  Lady watched as Dom reached down into his back pocket and came out with a permanent marker. He uncapped it and began to draw the symbol that had been creeping Lady out for days. “What’s the deal with the eye?”

  “It’s how my magic works,” said Dom without saying much at all really.

  Lady watched his arm move quickly. The marker was silver and the symbol barely showed up on the beige paper. “So it’s not a drug thing? Or a gang thing? I thought it was a drug gang thing.”

  “I don’t think there are any gangs in Dark Lake.” Dom capped his marker. “My talents are based here in my sigil.” He tapped his marker to the paper and then to his forehead
. “I can watch the town through it. Anything important that happens is shown to me here, in my third eye. The sigil is my third eye.”

  “This is some… interesting stuff you’re telling me, guys.”

  Destiny came over carrying two mugs. Lady hadn’t even heard the kettle go off. “Any more interesting than seeing that sea monster you mentioned?”

  “Fair enough.” Lady accepted the mug Destiny offered her.

  “Where’s mine?” asked Dom.

  “Make your own,” Destiny shot back, sinking down into the beanbag next to Lady.

  Dom grumbled but got up to do just that. Lady sniffed at her steaming mug. It smelled like cinnamon.

  “Drink it. It’ll help with your eye.” Destiny took a small sip from her own mug. “About what you asked earlier… Andrea and I were friends… Are friends. I don’t know. I don’t know what to call her anymore.”

  Surprisingly, the steaming beverage wasn’t too hot to drink. It was warm and tasted like heaven going down. “What happened?”

  “I slept with Riley. I guess that’s what happened.” Destiny was looking down at the table. She shook her head slowly, and Lady could see tears glistening in her eyes. “It wasn’t like he cheated on her, though. He tried to break up with her. He tried more than once, but she wouldn’t listen. What are you supposed to do about that? What do you do when you tell someone you’re finished and they tell you no?”

  “I don’t know. You break up with them anyway? I mean, it kinda takes two people to have a relationship.”

  “Exactly.” Destiny picked up a stick of incense between her thumb and forefinger. She rolled it there idly while they waited for Dom to finish preparing himself a drink. “I probably shouldn’t have gotten involved with him. I’m not going to sit here and tell you I loved the guy, but… I liked him a lot. I liked him a whole lot. He spent a lot of time down at the marina because of Andrea. We commiserated with one another about how mean she can be sometimes.”